Inuyasha Manga: 105 Miroku's Lifespan

I would have given him until 22, personally. All the regular hazards of life in Feudal Japan notwithstanding, I'm surprised he's not prematurely grey right now, given the stress of carrying around a mildly useful curse that will one day devour you. Hell, I found ONE grey hair a few mornings ago, and all I have to deal with stress-wise is managing my scant funds and driving on Virginia roads. Granted relying on a car everyday in a place where it's clear everyone wants to share a horrible fire-ball of a crash with you is PRETTY stressful, but it can't be nearly as stressful as knowing you'll be sucked into a void one day fairly soon.

I'm inappropriately imagining Kagome's tone as that exasperated irritation at one's child when they do something you told them not to AGAIN. For like, the FIFTH time.

Miroku grunts and groans through gritted teeth as the monsters funnel into his Kazaana, losing his footing at the force of their incoming. Inuyasha makes a noise of disgust and tells possessed!Mushin to get out of the way, knocking him back with a fist to the side of his face. The beads jingle out of possessed!Mushin's hands as he thuds to the ground. Miroku has landed against his father's memorial urn in the center of the crater, continuing to suck in the cloud of youkai, but the sound of a small spurt of blood can be heard. Miroku's small cut has just ripped open a little more, and Miroku notices this under a sheen of sweat.

"How dare you think that you might have been the only line of defense in an onslaught when the rest of your friends seemed otherwise incapable of handling it! Shame on you!"

Miroku stutters Inuyasha's name weakly while Inuyasha wraps the beads back around his wrist and calls him a moron again. He then warns Miroku that if that Kazaana is opened again, he'll break Miroku's arm. Yeah, that's the way to do it. Threaten a man already suffering a certain amount of incapacitation with MORE incapacitation if he continues to disregard his injuries.

Pshaw. MEN.

What remains of the cloud of youkai (which still happens to be quite a lot) have observed that Miroku's Kazaana is closed now and that there seems to be nothing to fear. SEEMS to be is the key phrase here. Inuyasha has drawn Tessaiga again, no longer purified so it can't transform, apparently, and tells those bastard monsters that from now on...

Somehow, the irritated mom voice I can't get out of my head is now attached to Sango, and it's even funnier.

Inuyasha gapes at Tessaiga's glittery glowy blade as pieces of all the youkai he slayed at once litter the ground around him. In fact, ALL of the youkai were torn to bits, a fact reiterated by Shippou and the tanuki in their awe. Inuyasha makes a questioning noise toward his sword, as though it can somehow answer for what it did back there, but if it could, Kagome beats it to haltingly saying that Inuyasha must have used the true power of Tessaiga for the first time. Sango only has one word for the obliteration of 100 youkai in a single blow: amazing.

What she doesn't find so amazing is the movement of that tsubo-pot user leaping out of the building behind her. How she caught that when it was out of her line of sight entirely is beyond me. Maybe he has a slayer-sense for these things. She narrows her eyes at the creature upon identifying it, and makes quick work of throwing her boomerang at it and slicing it right in half. It lands with a thump.

Kagome worries that Mushin isn't alive when she kneels next to him with the pot in hand, but Sango assures her that he was just knocked out. Still not great, but he's alive at least. The stringy strands poke out of his mouth again, to Kagome's alarm, even further so when they swim through the air right back into that blasted pot they came from. Sango and Kagome peer at Mushin, but they don't hear a sound from him. Kagome begins to grow concerned again now that he's not waking up, and even Sango is sweating about him not reviving though the Kokochuu are gone from his body.

Suddenly he lets out a big snore and Kagome announces that he seems okay. Inuyasha kicks him in the head and demands he get up. All is right with the world.

Morning arrives with chirping birds and Miroku's friends all sitting in a line on the porch outside the temple. Shippou says it's been quite a while, and Kagome tells him that Mushin was going to take some time to sew up that wound for Miroku. Just then, the door beside them slides open and Mushin emerges with a bottle of liquor, muttering about how reckless Miroku is. Not as reckless as someone preforming a medical procedure while intoxicated, you have to admit.

Inuyasha twists to look askance at Mushin while Kagome stands with an eager Shippou on her shoulder to ask how Miroku is. Mushin says that Miroku is asleep before turning to Inuyasha and ask him to follow for a bit. Inuyasha's face is a little uncertain, but by the next panel he and Mushin are standing on a corner of the porch away from the others, asking if Mushin has treated Miroku properly. Mushin pauses to take a swig of liquor.

Sounds a bit too soon... How about in approximately 450 more chapters?

Inuyasha pauses too, then asks Mushin what he means by telling him that. Sighing, Mushin admits that though he treated Miroku to the best of his ability, the Kazaana has already widened. Inuyasha's eyes do the same for a moment, and then soften when he asks if this means Miroku's lifespan has already gotten shorter.

Inside the temple, Kagome and Sango sit on either side of Miroku while he lays supine, supposedly asleep. Shippou and the tanuki do the same, respectively, except Shippou has taken a seat right at Miroku's elbow instead of keeping a respectful distance. Man, the little guy got SUPER attached to Miroku in the short time he's known him. If I weren't certain Miroku were going to teach Shippou some awful stuff, I'd call this kind of adorable. Oh what the hell, it's STILL adorable.

Hanging her head, Sango mutters a question about Miroku being strong in the mind, citing the fact that he kept a cheerful expression the entire time they had hung out before. Kagome agrees, thinking Miroku probably found every day depressing in all actuality. Outside, Inuyasha asks Mushin how long Miroku will live, and Mushin says he hasn't got a clue, but...

Well, that was what Inuyasha was planning on doing anyway, so no conflict there.

Inside again, because RT is secretly a cat, Miroku opens his eyes. Kagome and Sango lean forward in excitement, that he's awake, and Shippou hugs his arm happily. I can't help but love it, it's so cute! Miroku speaks about still being alive like he's trying to make small talk with estranged relatives. Kagome is a little more emotional, tears in her eyes as she informs him that Mushin gave him a little medical attention and he's fine now.

A nice delusion that Inuyasha won't get to engage in now. THANKS MUSHIN.

I guess all the happiness that Miroku was okay was too uncomfortable for him to handle. He much prefers it when people are annoyed and pissed off at him.

Sango has smacked Miroku upside the head with a small bucket from his bedside, and this surprises and upsets no one. The tanuki indicates with a long-suffering sigh that this is par for the course, Kagome stiffly reprimands Miroku for his sexual harassment even at a time like this, and Inuyasha and Mushin walk in on this scene only to adopt the indignant expression of everyone except the twitching and giggling Miroku. Inuyasha says he knew Miroku wouldn't die quietly, and Mushin hums his agreement.

Among the rustle of trees, a saimyoushou buzzes through the sky and lands on the waiting finger of Disney Princess Naraku. He notes that this is the only one to return, assuming the rest are dead. A small pause for wasp buzzing later, Naraku's face turns to shock when he marvels at the notion that Inuyasha killed all his minions with a single swing. Naraku contemplates Inuyasha's increase in strength, having sent more that 100 youkai for only one to have come back alive.

"And do you know how to go in the OPPOSITE direction of help for your intended murder victim? That's very important."

So, what did I think of this chapter overall? I don't mean to sound like a broken record about a consistent flaw I see in this work, especially since it's my favorite, but again with the hopping BACK AND FORTH between locations. I can only imagine that this is to drive home the fact that the conversations inside and outside are happening simultaneously, but it's unnecessary to do so. I don't see any point in it because if the two conversations happen one after the other, it doesn't change the impact of Inuyasha knowing a grim fact about Miroku's shortened life before anyone else does. RT thinks she's increasing the drama by closely following two conversations about the same thing as near to simultaneously as she can, but all she's doing is giving me whiplash.

That aside, Inuyasha's discovery of Tessaiga's ability to kill so many youkai with one swing was awesome. It was close enough to Sesshoumaru's mention of it that we (and Kagome) can recall it as pretty easily, but far enough away from that moment that we're not rolling our eyes at how convenient it is that Inuyasha just HAPPENED to learn it immediately after it's introduced. When she wants to, RT knows how to pace reveals so that they seem natural and not forced for the sake of plot or her own impatience. And I should just mention here that Inuyasha still hasn't LEARNED this technique, just used it accidentally without realizing how and why it worked. So, both characters and audience have to wait a while for more than the little taste we just got. It's a masterful way to keep the reader moving through the story in anticipation of that sweet payoff.

A similarly great technique RT has demonstrated she's a master of in this chapter is that suspense. She's introduced another ticking time-bomb with Miroku's Kazaana and its effect on his life here. Miroku had talked before about how it would eventually consume his body, but it was only talk until we SAW just how much danger using it put him in. It's more real to us now that we've seen just how the Kazaana can widen and bring Miroku closer to death, while we also get a sense of increased urgency knowing that Miroku still has an indeterminate amount of time left, but it's undoubtedly less than it was.

An urgency that might not be helped by the length of the series as a whole, if we're all honest.